Public document complicates Christie's pro-life conversion story

The story of how Gov. Chris Christie converted from being pro-choice to pro-life 20 years ago is touching and deeply personal, and he tells it frequently at town hall meetings.

It goes like this: In 1995, when he was in his first year as a Morris County freeholder and his wife Mary Pat was in the early stages of pregnancy with the couple’s second child, Sarah, Christie heard his daughter’s heartbeat in a pre-natal scan.

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“My wife and I went for a doctor's appointment and they put the Doppler on my wife's abdomen, and she was not showing at all at that point. And I heard that heartbeat really strong,” Christie told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in July. “It turned it for me. On that ride home, I said my position is not justifiable. That's a life, and I cannot countenance the taking of that life."

But the public record — made up of Christie’s own words as quoted or paraphrased in three newspaper articles from nearly a year after Christie’s self-described conversion, and his own prepared statement read into the minutes of a Morris County Freeholder Board meeting at the same time — suggests a more complicated story.

In July 1996, the Morris County Freeholder Board — on which Christie was in the second year of his first and only term — took up a resolution to condemn President Clinton’s veto of a partial birth abortion ban.

Christie, who was not at the meeting, had a prepared statement read into the record by a colleague.

From the minutes of the freeholder meeting: “Freeholder [John] O’Keeffe read a statement from Freeholder Christie, who was detained in Detroit on a business matter. Freeholder Christie’s statement, in part, was ‘I have, until now, considered myself a proponent of the ‘pro-choice’ position on the abortion question. However, as a matter of conscience, I must state my support for the legislation banning the 'partial-birth' abortion method…”

That statement came several months after Christie’s daughter was born, and about a year after the moment Christie said he changed his position on abortion.

Christie campaign spokeswoman Samantha Smith said the words “until now” should not be taken literally. She said that as a freeholder, Christie wouldn’t have needed to explain his position change until the issue came up at a meeting, so “until now” meant nearly a year earlier.

“He hadn’t had time to say in the months prior. Why would a freeholder just come out with a statement at random?” Smith said, saying it would be ridiculous to think he would “put out a statement the day his daughter was born.”

“It’s consistent,” she said.

But in three contemporaneous newspaper articles about the freeholder meeting and a working session leading up to it, Christie was more explicit about his support for abortion rights in general.

“I’m pro-choice, but I think this procedure is reprehensible,” Christie said, according to a Bergen Record article published on July 10, 1996.

A Star-Ledger article from the same date also said Christie “considers himself pro-choice but said he was outraged by this issue,” and then quotes him saying "it offended me and my sensibilities. When you take a position of choice, you don't have that in mind.” And a July 11 Star-Ledger article noted that the resolution, drafted by a different freeholder, “first was raised at Tuesday's freeholder work session by proclaimed pro-choice Freeholder Chris Christie, who was absent last night.”

Smith did not respond to the quotes in the article directly, but said she would give more credence to Christie’s own statement.

In a subsequent emailed statement, Smith said, "Governor Christie is pro-life and was the first pro-life candidate elected statewide in New Jersey since Roe v Wade. He has governed as a pro-life conservative throughout his term. None of these facts are in dispute. He has been open about his personal journey to becoming pro-life, and petty quibbling about it will not change his clear record and commitment on the issue."

Christie’s statements in the newspaper articles — though not his freeholder minutes — have been used to challenge his story in the past.

In 2009, Christie’s Republican primary opponent for governor, conservative activist Steve Lonegan, raised them. A 2009 Associated Press article that quoted Lonegan referred to the Bergen Record quote and said Christie may have been misquoted, though it did not quote the governor directly refuting the statements.

“The timeline is totally inconsistent with the truth,” Lonegan — who now chairs Christie rival Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in New Jersey — said in a phone interview.

Lonegan said the freeholder minutes alone are inconsistent, let alone the newspaper quotes.

“The way he wrote that, he sounds still pro-choice and has exceptions for late-term abortions. He doesn’t say he’s pro-life,” Lonegan said. “You have to look at someone’s total record over time. Words mean a lot. … And this is after the ephiphany — after he heard the heartbeat and the sob story.”

Early last year, Daily Beast writer Olivia Nuzzi also highlighted the newspaper quotes and questioned why the heartbeat of Christie’s first child, born two years earlier, “did not inspire a similar kind of soul-searching.”

The author of The Record article, John Cichowski, did not respond to an email seeking comment. The author of the two Star-Ledger articles, Lawrence Ragonese, was hired by the Christie administration in 2010 as a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. He also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Rick Wilson, a Republican campaign consultant who has done work for a super PAC that’s in favor of Christie presidential rival Marco Rubio, said the apparent inconsistency threatens to undermine Christie’s campaign slogan of “Telling it Like it Is.”

“It does make it more difficult for him to be the feisty truth teller,” Wilson said.

Nevertheless, Wilson said he thinks it won’t matter very much in the long run.

“If he was competing in Iowa, this would be a big deal. But he’s not. But I do think evangelical and pro-life social conservatives are going to go ‘this kind of validates something we’ve sensed with this guy all along,” he said.

Lonegan also said that despite the inconsistency, he thinks that abortion is a “secondary” issue in the race and that the voters who make it their top priority aren’t likely to back Christie anyway.

Marie Tasy, executive director for New Jersey Right to Life, said that she can’t speak to Christie’s conversion story but said he’s been a strong proponent of her cause as governor.

“I can’t begin to know what was in his mind at that time. What I do know is that since he’s been governor he’s been very consistent, very strong on the pro-life issues,” she said.

NOTE: The original version of this article has been updated to include an emailed statement from Smith.